


these beautiful, fragile days are reborn

by vikitty



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, time!baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vikitty/pseuds/vikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their daughter will go on to see the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these beautiful, fragile days are reborn

His daughter is born on a Saturday, because nothing ever exciting happens on Sundays.

Despite well-intentioned pleas from his in-laws for River to give birth at a normal hospital on Earth, it’s revealed that River is just as stubborn as Amy is, and so with the help of a midwife (one of the Sisters of the Infinite Schism, of course) River goes into labour on board the TARDIS with thankfully no complications.

While the labour is rather straightforward, River’s pregnancy is anything but. She has a vortex manipulator and he has a time machine, but things are still not as linear as they could be for nine months. She’s been pardoned for his alleged murder, thankfully, so she doesn’t have to deal with morning sickness while imprisoned in Stormcage. No, instead she’s back at Luna University staying at an apartment on campus, her educational plans on hold for the time being. 

It doesn’t matter in the end. Not when River is squeezing his hand so tightly that he makes a note to check for broken bones afterward, and Amy is similarly clinging to Rory with nervous excitement. 

Hours later, with one final push (hers) and several more fractured joints (his), their daughter is born.

He cries. Amy cries. Rory cries, too, but not before insisting he’s still a cool granddad. And River, his brave, strong, incredible River, just smiles tiredly, her eyes flickering between her husband and her daughter as the midwife tends to her.

As he watches, the overwhelming sense of love and pride that wells up within him warms him from his toes up to the crown of his head. Family. It had been so long since he’d had one quite like this. The scars of his time on Gallifrey, of his first wife, his children, have never quite fully healed but as he moves in to sit at the edge of River’s bed in the medical bay so he can take a good look at his new daughter, he feels them finally begin to fade.

Almost gone, but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

“She’s got your chin,” River whispers, gently turning the small bundle of blankets so he can get a better view.

He laughs quietly, shaking his head. “How can you even tell?” The Doctor leans in and kisses her forehead. “You are something else, River Song. Four hours of labour and the first thing you notice is the size of her chin.”

Amy’s arms are around him suddenly, and she peers over his shoulder at her daughter and new granddaughter. “Room for two more?”

“So long as there are no more jabs about my chin,” the Doctor grumbles, watching as Amy kisses River on the cheek and then runs her fingers gently through the baby’s downy hair.

“She’s got your hair, then,” Amy giggles at River.

“Right, have we forgotten the father is sitting right here?” the Doctor interrupts, and Rory claps him on the shoulder with a sigh.

“You get used to it.”

Rory and Amy visit with them a little while longer before being shooed out of the TARDIS medical bay by the Sister. He hears their footsteps in the corridor and smiles; he’s missed having company in the TARDIS these past months.

“Darling?”

He turns back to River, who is watching him. Exhaustion is etched into her face, but that smile, oh it’s just such a wonderful thing to see. He’s never seen her so happy before, and he knows his own grin is conveying the same message to her.

“She needs a name,” River gently prompts him, and he nods absently, his brain already rifling through hundreds of girls names faster than she could possible suggest them.

“She does, doesn’t she?” he agrees, and moving more slowly than he probably has in his entire life, reaches to gently pick up their newborn daughter and her coccoon of deep blue blankets. As he holds her against his chest, she blearily opens her eyes to blink up at him. “Any ideas?”

“Mmm, my brain is so full of names and dates right now, I’d probably end up calling her Cleopatra IV if you let me choose,” River sighs, her fingers gently toying with the edge of the blanket.

“Well, Cleo was pretty impressive. It wouldn’t be the worst namesake,” he jokes, and River rolls her eyes at him. The baby in his arms fusses again, almost if though impatient with him. “Just like Mum, eh?” Another eyeroll. “I’m thinking!”

As River watches him bonding with his daughter, he again goes through the names in his head. It’s easy to think of them, but less so to actually suggest them to River. Susan, Jo, Tegan… He recalls each one as he goes through them: his friends, his family.

After a long time, he looks up at River, hesitant.

“I might have one.”

He gently hands their daughter back to her mother, and River immediately begins to coo at her again for a few moments. He feels the tears burning at the corners of his eyes again, that inflation of the chest because his hearts feel as though they’re about to burst.

“I travelled with someone once, long ago. One of my best friends. She was brilliant. You would have liked her. We had to part ways though, and I didn’t know that she’d been waiting for me to come back for her. She waited for years. Actually, she reminds me of Amy in that way,” the Doctor continues. River sits listening to him talking, not saying anything.

“We’ve run into one another a few times since then. I went and saw her before I regenerated, and I saw her again afterward. Just once. I went back to see her a few months ago, to tell her the good news.” He reaches out to gently touch the cheek of the now sleeping baby in his wife’s arms. “She had died. Quite suddenly. I hadn’t known, or I would have visited sooner.”

River slowly, gingerly, leans over the side of the bed to place their daughter back into her cot before putting her arms around the Doctor, her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” her voice is soft. “What was her name?”

He closes his eyes tightly.

“Sarah Jane. So,” he manages to continue, taking in a deep breath, steadying himself, pushing the sad memories away and focusing on the good ones. “I thought maybe… we could name her Sarah. If you like the name. If you’re okay with naming her after someone you didn’t know.”

River hugs him just a bit tighter. “Will you tell me about her? Will you tell your daughter stories about her?”

“Of course I will,” he promises. “So… is that a yes?”

River just smiles in reply, and he picks up their daughter — their Sarah — from her cot. 

“Hello, sweetie,” he says with a grin. “Hello, Sarah.”

Sarah yawns and doesn’t open her eyes.

“She says she likes it.”

“Liar,” River huffs, but her eyes are twinkling. “You do not speak baby.”

“I don’t speak it, I understand it. There’s a difference.”

River’s laugh is cut off by her yawn, which prompts him to tuck Sarah back down into the faded blue cot and tap the mobile with a finger to send the stars slowly spinning.

River watches him. “Our daughter’s first stars.”

“They were yours too, once,” he smiles. “And mine. It seems appropriate.”

“I can’t wait for her to see real stars,” she sighs, her eyes beginning to close. “We’ll show her someday?”

He leans over to kiss her on the forehead. “Of course,” he whispers. “Now, you’ve been absolutely brilliant today. Amazing. I’m so proud of you.”

She’s already asleep when he pulls back, her eyes closed. He whispers in Gallifreyan to her and repeats it to his daughter before standing up. The TARDIS instinctively lowers the lights as he quietly makes his way out of the room, and when he turns back to check, it’s dark and quiet. The TARDIS sings an ancient lullaby from deep within as he walks down the corridor towards the sounds of Amy and Rory celebrating in the kitchen.

Yes, the TARDIS has been empty for far too long. This way, he realizes, is infinitely better.


End file.
